[Lingtyp] [ɸ] - [h]

Wed May 24 16:00:14 UTC 2023

Yes, I realized just after sending my message that non-high back vowels are
also [+grave]. I'm  not a phonetician but the vowel space suggests that
high back vowels should be more "grave", greater concentration energy in
the lower/est frequencies. I checked  p.35 of my old (1975) textbook and
see that Diffuse won't help, since both high and mid vowels are Diffuse vs.
low vowels, which are Compact. and of course only [u], and not [ɯ] is Flat.
Whatever feature one chooses for vowels, these are of course gradient
distinctions.

On Wed, May 24, 2023 at 8:52 AM Christian Lehmann <
christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> wrote:

> Hi Larry,
>
> thanks for the suggestion. However, unless memory fails me, all back
> vowels are [+ grave]. So we appear to need [+high] in addition.
>
> I do consider the alternative of an initial [ɸ] going to [h] except before
> a high back vowel. Apart from the problem that diachronic evidence will be
> hard to come by in the case of Cabecar, we would then face a typological
> problem, viz. of a (proto-)language whose fricatives are [s], [ʃ] and [ɸ],
> without an [h]. Again, a clash with Roman Jakobson.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Am 24.05.2023 um 17:30 schrieb Larry M. HYMAN:
>
> Hello Christian, and everyone. I have been enjoying this exchange. Two
> quick observations. First, labials and back vowels share the Jakobsonian
> acoustic feature [+grave] which has appeared now and then in the
> phonological literature,
> particularly in the 1970s. Of course if your /h/ varies with [x], as you
> said, then it already would be [+grave]. The question I have is whether
> it's possible that the original consonant was a labial fricative, and the
> two [+high, +back]
> vowels shield it from debuccalization? Any voiceless fricative can become
> [h], of course. Best, Larry
>
> On Wed, May 24, 2023 at 8:06 AM Christian Lehmann <
> christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> wrote:
>
>> Dear Jérémy and everybody,
>>
>> you are drawing attention to the fact that, no matter whether we call the
>> feature [labial] or [rounded], it is shared by /u/ and /o/. This calls into
>> question the initial assumption:
>>
>> No labiality or roundedness feature is responsible for [h] becoming [ɸ]
>> before [u]/[ɯ]. What seems to count, instead, is [+high, +back]. However,
>> [ɸ] does not share [+back] with these vowels, and shares [+high] with front
>> vowels, too.
>>
>> Your solution is that [+high, +back] increases the value of [labial] to
>> [++ labial]. (For both [u] and [ɯ]?)
>>
>> An alternative approach would be to doubt that [h] -> [ɸ] / __ [u]/[ɯ] is
>> at all a process of assimilation. But what is it then?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Christian
>>
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Am 24.05.2023 um 16:35 schrieb PASQUEREAU Jeremy:
>>
>> Dear Christian,
>>
>> I saw your message on LingTyp and, if I understood the issue correctly,
>> it seems to me you may be facing a similar problem as the one I faced a few
>> years ago when describing the phonology of Karata (Nakh-Daghestanian):
>> there’s a phonological rule (C labialization in Karata) that occurs in the
>> context of some rounded vowels (/u/) but not others (/o/). How to
>> discriminate between /u/ and /o/ given that they are both [+round] (or
>> [labial] if using privative features)? I wrote a paper
>> <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/712106> on this where I make the proposal
>> that in at least some languages the labial feature is scalar and therefore
>> phonological rules can make reference to one and not other labial features.
>> Regardless of the analytical innovation I proposed, you may find the paper
>> useful in that it discusses the range of phonetic (articulatory,
>> perceptual) and phonological evidence in favor of distinguishing different
>> degrees of rounding and it also discusses other phonological phenomena that
>> the proposal can be brought to bear on.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> *Jérémy Pasquereau*
>> chargé de recherche — https://jeremy-pasquereau.jimdo.com/
>> Laboratoire de Linguistique de Nantes (LLING) UMR 6310, CNRS & Nantes
>> Université — https://lling.univ-nantes.fr/
>>
>>
>> Le 23 mai 2023 à 14:40, Christian Lehmann
>> <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> a
>> écrit :
>>
>> Dear Miren and everybody,
>>
>> I find this problem interesting. Nowadays everybody appears to agree that
>> syntactic and morphological classes are essentially distribution classes
>> although the elements in question have meaning. In the same spirit, the
>> distributionalists conceived of the phoneme in terms of the distribution of
>> phones although these have physical properties. And the basic phonological
>> features like [consonantal] and [syllabic] essentially relate to the
>> distribution of segments in phonotactic patterns. Questions such as whether
>> [ts] consists of two segments /ts/ or is one affricate /ʦ/ are not solvable
>> by phonetics (to the best of my knowledge), but are resolved by analyzing
>> the distribution of this element. Again, it is true that distribution alone
>> leads to unsatisfactory classes. The complementary distribution of [h] and
>> [ŋ] in several languages including English is one such example. Apparently
>> a distribution class counts as a natural class only if it has a phonetic
>> motivation.
>>
>> My impression is that a full phonological description works with a
>> heterogeneous set of features: It does not abide by purely distributional
>> phonological features, but  also needs features which are essentially
>> phonetic and have no direct relation to the distribution of the segments
>> characterized by them. This may concern, in particular, features involved
>> in processes of assimilation. If a consonant assimilates to an adjacent
>> vowel, it means they share a feature despite their appurtenance to distinct
>> distribution classes.
>>
>> Net result for my initial question: Assuming that I want a rule that
>> assimilates a fricative to a following [u], producing [ɸ], I will have to
>> accept an articulatory feature like [labial] in my phonology. Does this
>> correspond to the state of the art in phonology?
>>
>> Christian
>> --
>>
>> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
>> Rudolfstr. 4
>> 99092 Erfurt
>> Deutschland
>> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
>> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
>> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
>> Rudolfstr. 4
>> 99092 Erfurt
>> Deutschland
>> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
>> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
>> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
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>>
>
>
> --
> Larry M. Hyman, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School
> & Director, France-Berkeley Fund, University of California, Berkeley
> https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~hyman
>
> --
>
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu
>

-- 
Larry M. Hyman, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School
& Director, France-Berkeley Fund, University of California, Berkeley
https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~hyman
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